New, unified elemtary school best solution
To the editor,
Our primary schools have creatively saved taxpayer money at our youngest learner’s and teacher’s expense. My mother, an educator in Scarborough for 42 years, spent her last 13 years in Scarborough teaching in a portable trailer. She retired 8 years ago and the now 21 year old portable trailer remains in use today.
Our primary and middle schools do not meet the safety, security, educational services and enrollment demands of our town. The business case clearly indicates, a patch work approach of adding a 4th school and renovating the existing schools is prohibitively expensive and will not solve the problem.
Over the past three years the building committee, comprised of community members, school board members and educators have spent countless hours researching, developing, and evaluating options to solve the school building problem.
Moving forward with a district wide solution that builds a new unified school and relieves overcrowding of the middle school is the solution that best meets the needs of our growing student population and is most fiscally responsible for our town. Our children’s future depends on our action right now, which is why we must come together to support the unified school.
Maryella Fortier
Unified school at The Downs of concern
To the editor,
The front page of the August 25 paper states, “Anticipated Off-Site Improvements: Track View Terrace.” As a resident of Track View, these proposals are anything but improvements. Track View is a privately-owned dead-end street yet has been a point of negotiation with The Downs for the new school land deal. These so-called improvements involve turning our quiet dirt road into a three-lane throughway to The Downs. Additionally, our property includes the Track View roadway from Sawyer Road, and no one has made us an offer to purchase this land or included us in these plans.
At the August 2 Town Council meeting, my husband and I addressed the council stating that it would be wholly unethical to enter a multi-million-dollar land deal with The Downs and then take my family’s property by eminent domain for mere pennies to actually access that land. The council voted 6-1 in favor of pursuing the land deal that night.
The article touts this construction will be “providing them frontage and access to the residences, access to the school, and access to city utilities.” This is incredibly misleading in that it would give us frontage – it’s our land right now and actually involves taking from us. Access to our home? Gee, thanks! And as tax payers, it is our right to tie into town utilities and access the school – these are not consolation prizes for taking our land and irreversibly changing the residential and family-oriented quality of our streets and neighborhood.
Meghan Condry
Scarborough
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